To guide you in your lecture preparation, a series of questions
has been generated within seven major categories of business
operations - questions that students are most likely to ask. As you peruse the questions below, a number of them will "jump out" at you as being particularly relevant to your career in business. We suggest you let these form the outline of your presentation as they will provoke the kind of detailed disclosure that will make your lecture most interesting and effective. While we suggest that the order in which the categories and questions occur below may be preferable, that may not always be the case. You will need to be the judge of that.

1. History of Your Company

• Background
  • What kind of business are you in?
  • How is your business structured?
  • Exactly what is your role, title, responsibilities?
  • When and how did your company start?
  • Why did you go into this type of business?
  • What were the major challenges you faced when starting the business?
  • What was the darkest moment in your business career?
  • What was the most exciting event/moment in your business career?
  • What were the critical success factors in getting started?
  • Why has your business been successful?
  • Were there any individuals who significantly influenced you? What were they like and why did they have an impact on you and your business?
  • Did you start the business alone or with partners? How did you decide?
  • What books, periodicals or other resources do you recommend?
  • What web resources do you recommend?
  • Have you ever thought about quitting? Why?
  • What is the current status of your business; where are you now?

• Managing Growth and Contractions
  • How has your business grown over the years?
  • How did you manage the growth and what did you do when it grew too fast?
  • How did you maintain morale when you faced a business contraction?
  • What are the factors that contributed to the growth of your company?
  • What factors contributed to the contraction or failure of your company?

2. Vision

• Business Model
  • How do you identify opportunities?
  • How did you determine that somebody needed your product?
  • What were/are the long-term goals of your company?
  • What are the key factors of success in your industry?
  • How do you integrate all the key success factors and maintain balance among them?
  • What role has community played in shaping your business model?
  • Do you develop products or services?

• Planning and Business Plans
  • What is your overall business plan?
  • Does your company have a mission? If so, what is it?
  • What are your long-term goals and objectives?
  • Does your company have a value statement?
  • How long was it before your business made/will make money?
  • In general, what was your marketing plan?
  • How do you know if you are on target?

• Decision-Making Tools
  • What computer-based tools do you use to support decision-making?
  • Who is involved in strategic decision-making in your company?
  • Is there a defined process and group for decision-making/planning?

• How does your company create its marketing plan?
• How did you identify who was most likely to need your product/service?
• How do you determine the size of your market?
• In what ways do you differentiate your product from that of your competitors?
• Where is your company in the product life-cycle?
• How do you stay informed of changes in the market?
• In terms of positioning, what is the image you seek to create in the mind of your customers?
• Do you advertise? In what media? What works best for you?
• How do public relations and promotions fit into your communications mix?
• How important is repeat business to you?
• How do you maintain customer service? What kinds of customer service problems do you typically deal with?
• What sort of marketing research does your company conduct? How do you use the data?
• What experience have you had in international marketing?
• What do your customers tell you about your business?

• What are the different sources of capital available to your company?
• What are the different types of capital (debt and equity)?
• How do you determine what amount of capital is required?
• How do you track accomplishments and the burn rate in which capital is used? i.e., How fast is capital used?
• What is the exit strategy for your company? What is the time frame?
• How do you track financial activity? Describe your record keeping.
• How does your company manage cash flow?
• How are you structured for project management?
• Have you had to make any "buying versus leasing" decisions?
• What is your policy and practice regarding extending customer credit?
• For growth management, how do/did you find working capital?
• How do you manage risk? What kind(s) of insurance do you carry?
• How do you deal with the following factors:
  • Expense control
  • Budgeting
  • Financial performance
  • Gross operating margin
  • Fixed versus variable costs - making buy decisions
  • Owner's compensation

• How many employees do you have?
• How does your company view the value of its human resources?
• How is your HR function organized?
• How do you go about recruiting good employees?
• What do you do to retain good employees?
• What kind of benefits do you offer?
• What are some of the tough decisions you have to make when putting together a benefits package?
• Describe your training and development activities.
• Describe the best employee you ever had. What made them great?
• Describe the toughest HR problem you ever faced. Why was it so tough? What did you do?
• Do you try to identify career paths for your employees?

• What role does technology play in your operating systems?
• Do you have a formal way of solving problems?
• What role does exporting play in your business?
• What are your physical property requirements?
• Describe your business facilities.
• How have your operating systems evolved over the years?
• How formal are your control systems?
• Describe how you deal with the following areas:
  • Accounting
  • Logistics/Distribution
  • MIS
  • Production
  • Materials Flow
  • Quality Control

• Values and Beliefs
  • What are your corporate values?
  • Why are values important in your company? How do they influence the bottom line?
  • What role do your values play in shaping your decisions?
  • Why do you run the company the way you do?
  • What is the toughest ethical decision you have faced in your business and what made the decision so difficult for you?
  • How do you communicate your values/belief system to your employees?

• Culture
  • How would you describe the culture of your business (e.g., management style, flexibility, innovation, empowerment, coordination and centralization, teamwork, rewards, motivation, etc.)?
  • What kind of corporate attitude do you promote?
  • Describe your leadership development program.
  • How do you get people to feel and act as part of a team?
  • How do you promote health and wholeness within your employees?
  • What role does technology play in creating, maintaining, changing or fragmenting corporate culture?
  • In your judgement, what makes for a healthy corporate culture?